Constructing a Model of Dialog

Constructing a Model of Dialog Mare KOIT Tartu State University Tartu USSR Abstract In the present paper communicative cycle (CC) is considered as a dialog arising between two partners during solving a problem. Communicative strategy (C5) is seen as a general scheme by which a dialog participant is guided in achieving his goal. CC is described in terms of the goals of the participants and CS. I, Introduction Dialog is a bilateral process the par ~ ticipants of which communicate each other messages concerning the surrounding world. Each participant interchangingly undertakes the role of the author or the recipient. For communication to be possible the commu- nicants must understand each other, i.e. %halt knowledge of language and about the world must have a shared part. Each partici- pant should also know something about the partner - his goals, knowledge, possibili- ties, etc. The task of a dialog model is a formal description of the process of communication or, in a narrower sense, description of the communicative structure of the text (speech) generated by the communicants in this pro- cess. Such description may be represented, for example, in the form of a generative grammar or graph /Robinson 1982, Metzlng 1981/ and it can be realized on a computer. One of the aims of working out the dialog models is just to facilitate the communica- tion of man with the computer, bringing it nearer to man-to-man communication. Next we consider some problems arising in simulating dialog interaction. 2. Communicative cycle and communicative strategy We limit ourselves only to treating such dialogs where the communicants (let 332 them be A and B) as co-operative partners solve some problems. The unit of simulation will be communi- cative cycle (CC). We define CC as dialog arising between two partners during solving a problem. CC consists of the alternate turn-ta- kings of the communicants though not every such sequence forms a CC. The turns are built up of communicative acts (CA). The minimal combination in a CC is a couple or triplet of turn-takings Of the participants (cf. /Langleben 1984/), for example A: ques- tion - B: answer, or A: question - B: answer - A: acceptance of the answer. Any CC starts with setting up a communicative goal by one of the participants (A). Let the goal of A be "B does a deed D'°. In natural communica- tlon achieving a goal requires more than one communicative turn-taking from both A and B. Typically, A has some obstacles in achieving D: e.g. B does not want to do D; B does not realize that not doing D involves negative consequences; B thinke that he is not able to do D, etc. For this reason A must, in addition to fixing the goal, also determine the resources he has at his disposal for overcoming these obstacles, and the way of using these resources - it means that A must outline the communicative strategy. Having fixed the goal G, A tries to direct the relevant intellectual and …

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